


You Can Find Out Firsthand

by 7iris



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-07
Updated: 2008-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7iris/pseuds/7iris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't the first time Mikey's woken up in a different bunk than he fell asleep in. This isn't even the first time he's woken up in a different body. It's the first time he's woken up with tits, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Find Out Firsthand

This isn't the first time Mikey's woken up in a different bunk than he fell asleep in. This isn't even the first time he's woken up in a different body. It's the first time he's woken up with tits, though.

 _Holy shit._ He feels his chest experimentally and, yeah, definitely tits.

Someone yanks the curtain back. "Alicia! Let's go!"

Mikey groans. This Alicia person's life sucks. No one should have to be up this early and this hungover.

He drags himself into the tiny bathroom and actually has his pants down around his ankles before he realizes he can't piss standing up. He squints suspiciously at the toilet and then gingerly lowers himself onto the seat. Which is when his hoodie starts buzzing.

"Fuck!"

The cellphone alarm is telling him that it's time for "BC pill." He stares at it blankly for a minute, then turns the alarm off and dials his own number.

There's a thump and some muffled cursing on the other end of the line, and finally his own voice saying, "Um. Hi."

He tries to be quiet. "Alicia?"

"Yeah," his voice says, and it sounds relieved. "Mike Way?"

"Mikey," he says automatically.

"Shit, yeah, sorry, please tell me you're with the street team."

"Maybe? I was planning on following the chick that dragged me out of bed this morning."

"Come on, bitch, we're gonna be late!"

"That's her right now," Mikey adds.

"Okay, good, that's Sarah. Stick with her and I'll meet you by the entrance."

"Okay," Mikey says, but he's already talking to the dial tone.

"You better not be puking in there, Simmons!"

He opens the door a crack. "No, I just need—"

Sarah shoves an overnight kit at him.

There's a packet of birth control pills, which, right, he should have figured that out. He dry swallows one of those and a couple of Advil. He doesn't even try to fix her make-up.

Sarah eyes him when he comes out.

"Hangover," he mumbles, and it's a good excuse to keep his mouth shut and blindly stumble off the bus behind her. This body feels small and uncomfortable and his hangover is in the wrong place.

There's a bunch of people standing around by the entrance to the grounds. He hangs back a little and Sarah turns around and raises her eyebrows.

"I'm, um, waiting for—" He sees his own body heading his way, moving fast and looking kind of pissed.

"Really?" she says, and he shrugs.

"Hey."

"Hey." He can feel the other people looking over curiously and it makes the back of his neck prickle.

"Can I talk to you somewhere else? It's about Pete," Alicia adds, and suddenly everyone is looking pointedly away and Mikey places her name. Fuck.

They find a relatively quiet spot behind one of the vans and end up just staring at each other. Mikey kind of wants to touch his body, to make sure it's really there, that it's really okay.

"So this is awkward," he says after a minute.

She laughs, sharp and startled, and he winces, because he always forgets how his laugh sounds from the outside.

"You're handling this really well," she says.

He shrugs. "So are you."

She nods and doesn't quite look at him when she says, "Me and my brother—"

"Oh, shit," he whispers, feeling his stomach lurch with a weird sense of recognition.

Her eyes snap to his, wary and expectant, and he thinks about lying for a split second, but in the end he says, "Yeah, me, too. Me and my brother. We switch sometimes."

He has never told anyone else about it, and as far as he knows, Gerard hasn't either. He's never met anyone else who's had it happen. It should make the whole situation less uncomfortable, but it doesn't.

"At least we're not playing today," he says. They've got the 4th off; it's why everyone got so drunk last night. He tries to remember if they're doing an interview today.

"I'm doing street team stuff."

"Okay, no problem. It never lasts that long, right? Tomorrow, we'll wake up and everything will be back to normal, and we won't ever have to talk about this again."

"Yeah," she says. She looks grim and doubtful, but doesn't argue.

"Okay, so." He gives her a little wave and when she doesn't say anything else, he turns to go.

He takes two steps back towards the entrance and she says, "Way."

He turns back around. She's scowling at him and her shoulders are tense. "If you. If you fuck anyone in that body, or let anyone touch it, or take pictures, or anything like that, I will fucking _end_ you."

Mikey blinks at her. "I— No, I won't. I know, okay? I wouldn't."

She nods jerkily, but her shoulders don't relax.

"And, um, likewise," he adds, and she snorts and looks away.

That night, Mikey lets Alicia's friends talk him into hanging out, but he doesn't say anything.

One of the techs hands him another beer. He's planning to get drunk, just in case that had something to do with everything. So far he's kind of impressed with Alicia's alcohol tolerance.

"Are you okay?" Sarah asks.

"Yeah."

She makes a disbelieving face but doesn't push it.

  
**::**   


He wakes up the next morning and, yup, the tits are still there. Alicia's phone is buzzing in his pocket.

"I don't suppose you can tech," she says when he answers.

"I don't suppose you can play bass," he snaps back, stung.

"Actually, I can." There's a short, pissy silence, and then she says, "I'd have to practice your sets, though. Um. Do you want to tell your brother?"

"No," Mikey says, too fast. "I just— He's had a rough year. I don't want to..." He trails off. His hangover rolls greasily in his belly and he tries not to think about how he and Gerard haven't switched since Gee sobered up. About what it means that his mind didn't find Gerard this time when it went wandering.

"Okay," Alicia says carefully.

"You can practice with Ray, as much as you want, he won't ask any questions. I know how to tune a bass—you can hang out sidestage and tell me what I should be doing." He tries not to sound too pleading.

"Yeah," she says, but she doesn't sound convinced. "Fine, I'll see you there in an hour. You know what stage it is, right?"

"Yeah." Fuck. "Wait." It was awkward enough switching with Gerard, but switching with a stranger feels worse, more vulnerable and exposed. He stares at the bunk ceiling and makes himself say, "There's pills in my bag. Prescription."

She takes a deep breath, but all she says is, "Okay," before she hangs up.

  
**::**   


"You're making me look bad."

"Fuck off," Mikey mutters and keeps his eyes on the bass. He's got the hands-free earpiece on and she's sidestage on his cellphone, giving him directions. She doesn't sound pissed, but he knows she's not exactly wrong. It's taking him longer than it should to tune it, and his tits keep getting in the way.

She hangs up without saying anything, and when he looks up, he sees why.

Pete is standing next to her, one arm around her shoulders, laughing.

He catches her eye across the stage, and even though it's his own face, he can't read her expression at all.

He's almost afraid to watch his band's set, but Alicia's not bad on the bass.

She doesn't sound exactly like him though, and Ray keeps glancing at her during the set. Frank comes over a couple of times and leans on her, too, but overall it's nothing noticeable, nothing they can't explain as him having a bad day. Which really isn't even a lie.

Someone he doesn't know calls him halfway through the set to tell him to get his ass over to the merch booth. He shows up late and a little lost, but he's relieved enough to be moderately pleasant to the fans who want to buy stuff.

When everything is done and packed away, Alicia calls him. "You're friends with Pete, right?"

"Yeah," he says slowly.

"So you wouldn't mind if I hung out with him tonight? Because your band is really..."

If she says crazy, he is going to punch her in the face the next time he sees her.

"...close, and I can't fake this for long. They're going to figure out something is wrong with you if I hang out with them too much. At least Pete— Pete's standards of crazy aren't the same as everyone else's."

"Yeah, that's for sure," Mikey says automatically. "Are you— That's probably a good idea."

"It's not, really, but it's better than the alternative."

  
**::**   


The third day, he sighs and texts Alicia _fuck_.

 _y_ , she says.

He staggers out into the front lounge. There's no coffee but there's an entire fridge full of diet Coke. There are three people passed out on or near the couch and Sarah's brushing her teeth at the kitchenette sink.

She spits and says, "We're early. You've got time to put in your contacts."

By the time he's done that, they're not early, and he remembers why he hates contacts.

At least he's a little faster during set-up. He has to think about what he's doing, but he remembers what he needs from Cortez, and what he used to do back in the days when they didn't have techs.

He's coming off the stage when he hears one of the other techs saying, "—sucked Wentz's dick to get this job." He missed the subject of the sentence, but from the looks he gets, he can figure it out.

He stops dead, hands clenched, feeling a rush of anger and a tiny, goading bit of guilt. Before he can say anything, Sarah's pulling him back and away.

"What's wrong with you?" she hisses.

"They said—" Mikey stumbles over the pronouns.

She rolls her eyes. "I know. They've been saying that this entire tour. Why are you getting all worked up about it now? You know that's only going to make things worse."

He doesn't have a good answer for that, so he just shuts up and waits for soundcheck to be over.

He hates her job less than he thought he would. It kind of reminds him of working for Eyeball, of their first tours, back when nobody actually cared who they were. He misses playing, and his band, but he doesn't miss the signings or the interviews or not being able to pile into a van and go to the closest 7-11 for Slurpees and popsicles at the end of the day.

Still, a week goes by faster than he was expecting.

"You have ridiculous sunglasses," he says when she drops into the folding chair next to him.

"So don't fucking wear them. Where is everyone?" She hands him his Sidekick and he returns hers.

"Dirty's doing something—"

"Okay, yeah, I don't need to know."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, texting people they can't talk to anymore, until finally Mikey says, "What's the longest you've gone?"

Her fingers stop moving over the keys. "Ten days."

"Oh."

"Have you ever done it on purpose?"

"No. Why? Have you?"

She shrugs and keeps her eyes on her phone. "No. Not— maybe. When I was a teenager, I was sick. Really sick, like hospital sick. Me and my brother would take turns in my body. It wasn't on purpose, exactly, but it was like we'd both really, really want to switch, at the same time, and it would happen."

"Oh."

They hear the party coming before they see it, an indistinct rumble of laughter and shouting.

 _gotta go,_ Mikey types.

They switch phones before Bob can reply.

  
**::**   


"So, Sarah thinks you're still hung up on Pete. We just had a thirty minute conversation about how he's a dicksmack and not good enough for you."

Alicia laughs. "Yeah, it's possible your brother thinks the same thing about you."

"Pete Wentz explains a lot of weird behavior."

This is the other thing they do, call or text each other at the end of the day. ("To talk about how we're fucking up each other's lives?" Alicia asked. "Basically," Mikey said.)

"So, hey, you've been keeping up with the birth control pills, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. I've got like eight or nine left in this pack and I found the refills in your bag."

"So..." She trails off expectantly, then clears her throat when he doesn't say anything. "So, don't freak out, but in a couple of days, you're going to start bleeding from the vag."

Mikey drops the phone.

"What?" he hisses.

He can almost hear her rolling her eyes. "It's no big deal, okay? I've got tampons and shit in my bag, just read the directions and you'll be fine."

"What?"

He hears muffled voices on the other end, and then Alicia says, "Listen, I'll talk to you later," and hangs up.

Mikey's gotten used to the breasts, and the sitting down to piss, and the contact lenses, but he's pretty sure he's not prepared for this.

Even though he can hear Gerard's disapproving voice in the back of his head when he thinks it, being on the rag makes him feel dirty. Not like, leper-unclean, but literally messy and gross. He would cut a bitch for a shower, which is saying something. He's pretty sure he still has blood under his fingernails from his first and only attempt to use a tampon. (He felt weird about sticking something in Alicia's vagina when she wasn't there, and the warnings about Toxic Shock Syndrome freaked him the fuck out.)

"I'll be honest," Alicia says, halfway through the week. "I'm not sorry to be missing that."

"Eh, it's okay."

"Right. You know you have to do this again in three weeks if we haven't switched back?"

"Motherfucker," Mikey says, and she's still laughing when he hangs up.

  
**::**   


After one of the shows in Florida, Mikey blows off all of Alicia's friends to curl up in her bunk with a bottle of vodka, because it turns out that guys are nicer to girls about some things, but are complete assholes in other regards, and he does not want to deal with that shit tonight.

He's just starting to feel warm and loose when Alicia calls him.

"Mikeyway," she says, "do you think Pete is hot?"

He wonders if she's been drinking, too.

"Because I still want to fuck him through the mattress and I don't know if that's me or you or both of us. I mean, it would be cool, right? If you didn't like boys before, but once I'm in your body, you do. Or your body does. Or something."

In the dark, tiny space of the bunk, the phone pressed against his ear, the conversation feels strangely comfortable. Or maybe it's just the vodka. "Yeah, I think Pete's hot."

"Oh," she sighs.

Mikey rolls onto his back. As long as they're asking awkward questions— "Are you still in love with him?"

It's her turn to be quiet for a long moment. Then she sighs again and says, "No. Not, not exactly. He's just..."

"Yeah," Mikey says.

She laughs. "God, Mikey, I'm just so fucking horny."

And, oh, that's what that feeling is.

"You're lucky Pete really isn't into dick, or I would have let him fuck this body."

Mikey pulls in a harsh, startled breath.

"I would have asked first," she says, almost reproachfully.

"I would have said yes, as long as I could watch," Mikey says before he can think about it. He's picturing it, and the image kind of flickers between Pete fucking Alicia and Pete fucking him, and both of them are stupidly hot.

"I know we said no other people," she says, "but, um, what about..."

"Yeah, yes, jerking off is totally fine," Mikey says in a relieved rush, and this would be the point, logically, where they hang up and take care of things by themselves, but neither of them do.

He unzips his jeans and slips his hand inside, and listens to Alicia's sharp hiss of breath. He strokes a finger over the lips of his pussy, feeling himself getting wet, a shiver of heat in his gut at the drag of calluses against soft, slick skin.

He's gotten girls off like this before, but it's not quite the same. The angle is different, for one, and for another— his hips jerk as he rubs his clit. For another, he knows for sure what he's doing right.

He can hear her ragged breathing on the other end and asks, without entirely meaning to, "What are you thinking about?"

"Fucking you," she says, low and gritty. "Fucking you in this body. You've never done that as a girl, right?"

Mikey's brain stutters to a halt and he comes with a breathless, inarticulate noise of agreement.

"Oh, fuck," she whispers, almost surprised, and her breath catches, and he knows she's coming.

He feels like he should stay awake, but exhaustion is creeping over him and he's too relaxed to fight it. " 'Licia," he mumbles, and he falls asleep before he figures out what the rest of that sentence would have been.

When he wakes up in the morning, a tiny part of him expects to be back in his own body, but he's exactly where he was last night.

They don't talk about it, but he thinks about it the next night, biting his lip and sliding his fingers between his legs.

  
**::**   


They've got about two weeks before the end of the tour when Alicia catches him alone on the techs' bus.

She looks tired and stressed out when she hands him his phone. "I know you don't want to tell anyone about this, and I get that, I don't want to tell the world either, but, um. I really want to talk to my brother. I promise I won't tell him your name or anything, I just—"

"No," Mikey says, feeling like an asshole all of the sudden. "I mean, yes, that's fine, that's not a problem, shit."

He takes his phone into the bunks, and he can just barely hear the murmur of her voice from where she's curled up on the couch in the front lounge. He flips the phone open and scrolls through the contacts. He thinks about texting Gerard, but that's not exactly what he wants, and he stares at the blinking cursor for a long time before he closes the message.

If he leans a little out of the bunk, he can see Alicia on the couch. She's got her knees drawn up to her chest and her head bent, but he can still see her smile, small and happy.

It hits him like a tidal wave, a fierce, lonely longing, and he wants suddenly to be on his own bus, talking to Gerard and the rest of his band and—

—And then there's a swooping sense of disorientation, and he's in the front lounge.

He almost falls off the couch.

"Alicia?" an unfamiliar voice says in his ear.

"Uh, yeah, hold on," he says into the phone.

Alicia's standing in the doorway now, and it's a little weird to see her face from this angle. He tosses her the phone and she fumbles both of them before she gets a grip and throws his back.

"So this is. Um. I'm just going to—" Mikey waves his phone in the air, and she gives him a thumbs up, already turning away.

He almost trips over his own feet on the way out the door, scrolling down to Gerard's name.

  
**::**   


He's ridiculously happy to be back in his own body again, to be able to talk to Gerard and his band and his friends and Pete as himself again.

To be playing again. Ray catches his eye on-stage halfway through "Cemetery Drive" and grins at him, and he grins back, hard enough to make his face hurt.

But at the end of the night, when he finally falls into his bunk, he feels a tiny pang of something like regret when he realizes he doesn't have to text Alicia and tell her about his day.

  
**::**   


It takes her three tries to catch his attention, because he's not used to hearing her voice outside her head.

" _Mikey_ ," she says finally, and he looks up, startled, to see her watching him.

She smiles and he smiles back like an idiot. He ducks his head. "Hey, hi, um." He holds out one of the red cups in his hand. "I was getting it for Ray, but fuck him."

She laughs and takes it. He has to step in close to hear Alicia over the music and the shouting.

"Since it's the last night and everything," she half-yells. "I just wanted to say, you should call me."

"I— really?"

Her smile slips a little. "Yeah, if you want."

"I do," Mikey says quickly. He's too embarrassed to say _I missed you_ , but he decides _fuck it_. He leans in and kisses her, just a soft, chaste press of lips.

She blinks at him, and licks her lips. She glances back over her shoulder. "I gotta go, but—"

"I'll call you," he says, like a promise, and she grins back, brilliant and delighted.  



End file.
